The Boeing 737 MAX grounding

Overview

The worldwide Boeing 737 MAX grounding occurred on 13 March 2019 following the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302. The crash of ET302 was the second crash of a 737 MAX following Lion Air 610 the previous October. Both crashes implicated the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a flight control system unique to the 737 MAX. Initially expected to last weeks, the grounding is now projected to stretch more than a year as Boeing works on a revision of MCAS and associated changes to the MAX. Boeing suspended 737 MAX production in January 2020 and on 21 January announced it expects return to service to ‘begin during mid-2020’.

737MAX news articles

Boeing announced today that it will suspend 737 MAX production beginning in January 2020. The 737 MAX has been grounded worldwide since 13 March 2019 following two deadly crashes linked to the aircraft’s MCAS system. The manufacturer has continued to produce around 40 planes per month with approximately 400 now in storage at various facilities.
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The US National Transportation Safety Board issued 7 safety recommendations to the FAA today regarding the crashes of 2 737 MAX aircraft in November 2018 and March 2019. The safety recommendation report does not address the cause of either crash, which is the responsibility of the investigators in charge in Indonesia and Ethiopia, respectively. The …
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Updated 18 December 2019 Boeing announced this week that it will temporarily halt production of the 737 MAX beginning in January 2020. Since the grounding of the 737 MAX in March 2019, Boeing has continued to produce 737 MAX and now approximately 400 undelivered aircraft sit in storage. We’ve updated our list of where 737 …
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Lion Air flight JT610 departed Jakarta for Pangkal Pinang at 06:20 local time (23:20 UTC) on 29 October and lost contact shortly after departure. Flightradar24 received the last ADS-B message from the aircraft at 23:31:56 UTC at an altitude of 425 feet AMSL. The flight was operated by Boeing 737 MAX 8 registration PK-LQP. The …
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AvTalk Podcast related to the 737 MAX

On this episode of AvTalk, Boeing halts production of the 737 MAX, Harbour Air’s electric Beaver takes flight, and we run down the list of airlines that didn’t make it through 2019 and a few that could join that list very soon.
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Return to service — if? when? On this special episode of AvTalk, we welcome back The Air Current editor-in-chief Jon Ostrower for a discussion on the state of the 737 MAX’s return to service and what we’ve learned this month with the release of numerous reports, including the Joint Authorities Technical Review and the final …
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On this episode of AvTalk, we discuss Boeing’s MCAS software update, the continued grounding of the 737 MAX fleet, and passengers on one flight are surprised to find themselves in the wrong country upon landing.
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On this episode of AvTalk we’re joined by The Air Current editor-in-chief Jon Ostrower to discuss the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 and the subsequent grounding of the 737 MAX. We also get an update from the NTSB on the crash of Atlas Air flight 3591 and an update on the closure of Pakistan’s …
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